Industry Updates

Scientists Might Have Discovered a New Human Ancestor With DNA Analysis

Modern human DNA is actually a cocktail. While we call ourselves Homo sapiens, we’re actually a mixture of other species like Neanderthal and Denisovan, early human ancestors. This latter group’s DNA, recently discovered in 2010, is particularly common in East and Southeast Asia populations, but a new study in Cell provides evidence that another ancestor, one that branched off from Denisovans long ago, lived in Papau New Guinea and also mated with modern humans as soon as 15,000 to 30,000 thousand years ago.